The present invention relates to television systems and computer systems and, more particularly, to systems for sharing information between the two.
With the pervasive presence of voice communication devices, there is also a common need to share visual information as well. Many consumers have expressed the need to share family photographs with others, as is evidenced in part by the rapid adoption of digitized photography and photo album software. Likewise, many customers find voice-only interactions with businesses wanting, as evidenced in part by the rapid growth in visually-oriented web-based customer support. An early alternative to voice telephony has been video telephony. Video telephony allows telephone calls in which both caller and calling party can see each other via a visual display. The visual display and camera needed at each end of the call might be attached to the phone, to a PC, or to a television. The slow adoption of this form of communication is partly due to the need codiffusion of the technology (i.e. both parties need similar equipment), the expense and difficulty of managing the technology, and the lack of interest by many consumers.
The rapid development of the World Wide Web and the Internet has provided alternative avenues of sharing information. For example, IP (Internet Protocol) cobrowsing is a process that allows users to control web browsing on their personal computers (PCs) and on PCs operated by other PC users. Thus, the uniform resource locator (URL) displayed in one browser is also displayed on another browser. Depending on the application, control might be symmetric (shared by both users) or asymmetric (controlled by only one user). Other collaborative PC applications allow multiple users to simultaneously control the viewing and editing of the same document. In order to use the above methods of sharing web browsing and other applications, however, both users are obviously required to have access to a PC. Most households in the U.S. do not have PCs. PCs currently have a market penetration of roughly forty percent of U.S. households, and far fewer use such PCs for web browsing (though they may use the Internet from work).
On the other hand, approximately 65% of U.S. households subscribe to cable television and cable networks can be easily accessed by over 90% of U.S. households. Methods currently exist that allow a television set to be used as a web browser to access the Internet, e.g. WebTV. Such arrangements, however, rely on upstream data paths either through a cable or telephone connection. Navigating the World Wide Web requires a separate keyboard or a specialized remote control. Moreover, the set top box required for such arrangements tends to be costly and also tends to be difficult to use by people who are not familiar with web browsers and URLs. Accordingly, there are many people who would benefit from the ability to see certain web sites occasionally without requiring the need to browse on a regular basis. One example of such a person would be a cable TV viewer who occasionally desires information from a site such as Pointcast but otherwise is not interested in web browsing or computer use. Another example is a personal computer user who desires to send a graphic image to a person who has access to only a cable TV, e.g. a PC-enabled family who wants to send a picture of a newborn baby while simultaneously talking to the faraway grandparents who only have access to cable TV and a telephone line.
The discussion above suggests three recent market trends that are relevant as background to the current invention: (1) the slow growth of video telephony and WebTV; (2) the development and growth of Internet-based cobrowsing techniques; and (3) the rapid growth of methods that allow consumers to create digitized photographs, store them in a personal computer, and share them via the Internet with close friends and relatives. Accordingly, given these three market trends, it would be advantageous to devise a novel mechanism for directing data (such as an audiovisual signal) across a data network (such as the Internet) to a particular cable TV.
The present invention presents a novel mechanism by which a sender can direct information such as an audiovisual signal to a particular recipient""s audiovisual display device, such as a cable television set and, thereby, share information between the sender and the recipient. In one embodiment of the invention, the calling party originates a connection on a voice communication network, e.g. a telephone call, and associates that telephone call with audio-visual information that exists on the caller""s computer or on an Internet server. The called party answers the call, and can tune an associated cable television to the appropriate channel in order to view the audio-visual information. The caller can modify the audio-visual information during the call. Accordingly, the current invention ties together the telephone, cable, and IP networks in a manner that does not require large investments from cable or telephone service providers beyond what is already being invested to support Internet-access with cable.
The key concept is the association between two otherwise independent channels of information: one used for multi-way voice and the other for data. Information in the setup instructions for the multi-way voice-enabled channel is used to address the recipients of data (who are also participants in the voice conversation) and in-band signaling or an implicit criteria such as duration of the conversation is used to grant permission to receive data over the data channel. Notably, the conversation can continue while the data is being transmitted.
In an alternative embodiment of the invention, a called party, such as a representative at a customer service center or an interactive voice response unit, can associate audio-visual information with the call such that the calling party can see the data on the appropriate television channel. In another embodiment, the telephone keypad can be used to move forwards and backwards through a series of audio-visual screens. In another embodiment, the cable subscriber can preset the television to a particular URL which can be viewed, but not navigated, without the telephone call.
These and other aspects of the invention will become apparent from the drawings and the detailed description.